He Gets That From You
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, AU. Oneshot. Every child gets something from their parents. Rated for some Dixon language.


**AN: So this is just a little fun oneshot. It's done to go with a tumblr prompt that was sent to me by therealsonia. It's just for entertainment value.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl thought that the teacher must be shitting him when she gestured toward the small red and blue chairs with attached desks. There was nothing wrong with the chairs, of course, except that they were the perfect size for his six year old and, therefore, they were about fifty times too small for him.

She wasn't joking, though. In fact, if Daryl had to guess, he'd say that Mrs. Deetz hadn't joked about anything within the span of her memory.

So he'd squeezed his ass into the chair and he'd held the second one still while Carol worked her way into it, turning sideways because the bulge caused by their youngest—only six months even into existence—wouldn't allow her to fit in the desk any other way.

Mrs. Deetz didn't bother to sit. Instead, she leaned against the front of her own desk and looked down on Carol and Daryl—literally and figuratively—with her arms crossed tight across her chest. She'd been scowling at them since they got there. Either her face was frozen that way, or they were about to find out that Wyatt wasn't exactly living up to her expectations.

"I supposed you know why we're all here," Mrs. Deetz said. It was clear that she was directing her question to Daryl, but if she knew anything at all, she would know that it was Carol who really knew everything there was to know about anything that happened in their family. Daryl looked at Carol and raised his eyebrows at her. She sighed. She already looked exhausted—and he could only blame so much of it on the pregnancy. He cleared his throat and looked back at the teacher.

"We assumed you were gonna tell us," Daryl said.

"Mrs. Dixon?" Mrs. Deetz asked, looking at Carol.

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"Is Wyatt not doing well?" Carol asked. "Is he not—on par with the other students?"

"He had trouble with...what'd they call it? The cutting and the...the coloring in the lines and the..." Daryl started, hoping he could help with things.

"Fine motor skills," Carol said. "Wyatt had some problems in kindergarten with fine motor skills. But we met with the principal and his teacher and they really didn't think that the—that the difference between his skills and those of his classmates was enough to hold him back."

"There doesn't seem to be a problem with Wyatt's fine motor skills," Mrs. Deetz assured them quickly.

Daryl shifted a little in the desk, partly from physical discomfort and partly from discomfort over the fact that she had said his son's fine motor skills were up to par, but she hadn't said anything else was.

It was only when Mrs. Deetz cleared her throat rather loudly that Daryl realized his shifting around in the plastic desk was causing a noise that seemed to bother her. She and Carol were both staring at him.

"Sorry," he offered quietly. "Just—kinda _wedged_ in here."

Mrs. Deetz didn't offer him a bigger chair. She didn't offer him the dignity of letting him stand, at the very least, and stretch his legs during the meeting. She kept the same sour and cross expression on her face and she looked to Carol—ignoring Daryl entirely. She sighed an exasperated sigh.

"Wyatt is having some trouble in the classroom," she said.

"We're working on reading," Carol said quickly and defensively. "Every night. We work on reading and writing and—we do simple math with him."

"He's good at the math," Daryl offered. "He can do addition _and_ subtraction as long as his numbers don't get over twenty. I been workin' a long time on that with him. Just using, you know, one dollar bills and...he seems to like it."

Mrs. Deetz looked annoyed with Daryl.

"Wyatt's _math_ skills are fine," Mrs. Deetz said.

"He can read all the little readers we got," Daryl said. "And some of them say they're for third graders. He can read just about all of 'em without a problem."

"Wyatt is reading above his grade level," Mrs. Deetz said, her tone of voice changing slightly. Daryl didn't have to strain his ears much to hear her irritation.

"I know he's got some trouble with the spelling words," Daryl said. "But he's good at spellin' all the words like they sound. It's just—some of the letters that you don't hear? But that's hard for most people. If you don't have proof it exists, then how are you supposed to know it's there? We work on them, though, on those big—you know the big tablet pages? Every night we run through all ten of his words for the week. Spend extra time on the ones he keeps missing."

The expression that crossed the woman's face wasn't a comforting expression. Her face changed a few shades and she visibly shifted her jaw.

Daryl glanced at Carol when he felt her reach her hand over and touch him on the arm. She patted his arm a couple of times and he moved, as much as he could, to put his hand over hers—but in doing that he shifted around a decent amount and the little desk scooted forward to let out another of the offending noises that it made every time he so much as breathed heavy.

He feared they were warning "shocks" or something and the tiny desk might actually fall apart under the pressure of trying to hold him.

Mrs. Deetz sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It reminded Daryl of the breathing techniques that Carol had practiced almost religiously before Wyatt had been born. They hadn't worked for her very well, though, and she seemed to have forgotten about them during this pregnancy. Judging by the very limited amount of "calm" that came over the teacher's features, the breathing didn't work so well for her either. Of course, Daryl had tried it himself when Carol was in labor and he couldn't see where it really did anything—so maybe all the deep and cleansing breaths were just a hoax.

"Wyatt doesn't have any problems with the _material_ for the class," Mrs. Deetz said. "He's doing fine in all the academic areas that he's expected to be working with during the year. Wyatt's problem are is more in _behavior_ in the classroom."

"Is he bullying somebody?" Daryl asked. "Because I know he maybe sees a lot of that, but I can promise you that we do _not_ allow that shit!"

Carol squeezed his arm and Daryl realized his mistake.

"Sorry," he offered again.

"Mr. Dixon," Mrs. Deetz said, "would you please allow me to finish speaking?"

Daryl swallowed and nodded his head. He shifted again and, hearing the squeak from the chair as it hopped a little, he winced.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah—go ahead."

"Do you think that you could refrain from interrupting me or moving your chair for a few moments?" Mrs. Deetz asked.

Daryl nodded his head again.

"Mrs. Dixon?" Mrs. Deetz asked. Carol held her hands up in mock surrender. She immediately returned her hand to Daryl's arm.

"I'm fine," she said. "What seems to be the problem?"

Mrs. Deetz sighed, this time sounding a little more exhausted than like she was gearing up to explode, and she directed her attention wholly to Carol.

"Wyatt has some problems in the classroom," Mrs. Deetz said. "He's a perfectly polite little boy and he's—he's very helpful with the other students. He likes to help clean up after activities and he loves any job that he can possibly be assigned."

Carol nodded her head, her brow slightly furrowed with concern, like she understood everything the teacher was saying and what, exactly, it had to do with whatever problem that Wyatt might be having. Daryl chewed at his thumb and did his best to keep from interrupting, but as he listened to the teacher go on—ticking off what he considered to be good character traits of his son—he finally found that he couldn't take it anymore.

"But none of these things are _bad_ ," Daryl insisted. "So I don't understand what the problem is. Is he doing something wrong or ain't he?"

Mrs. Deetz stopped speaking, mid-sentence, and every bit of irritation that had drained out of her face quickly returned with a vengeance. Redness flooded her face to the point that Daryl wasn't sure that any breathing technique would help her, but he figured she should probably try some of them simply to keep herself from passing out in the floor.

"Wyatt's _problem_ is that he's _disruptive_ ," Mrs. Deetz said. "He interrupts me. He interrupts other students. He hasn't exactly mastered the skill of working quietly and he has a difficult time keeping himself on task. In fact, if something loses his interest for a moment? Wyatt seems to have a particularly difficult time _ever_ getting back to what he was doing. But his biggest problem in the classroom—and in the hallways and in assemblies—is speaking out of turn."

Daryl could _feel_ Carol looking at him. And for that reason, and really only for that reason, he made sure to stare straight at the teacher. He didn't break the hold that his eyes had on her for any reason.

"Mrs. Deetz," Carol offered, "I'm _so_ sorry about that. I'm sure that we can work on that, at home, with Wyatt. We'll have a talk with him when we get home."

"His problem is he talks too much?" Daryl asked.

Carol squeezed his arm hard enough to let him know that he should be quiet, so he simply returned to gnawing at his cuticle and let her handle the rest of the meeting. He gritted his teeth, even when he wanted to offer his input, and he listened as Mrs. Deetz gave them a list of some truly ridiculous suggestions about how they could work with Wyatt to make sure that he learned to "talk in turn", as she called it, and to avoid disrupting the class. He listened, too, as Carol promised the woman that they would do everything they could to try to assure that these problems didn't happen again.

And, eventually, they were free to escape the small desks and leave the classroom. Daryl worked his way out of the desk first, blood rushing back to the lower parts of his body, and then he offered his hands out to help Carol to her feet. She straightened her clothes and offered a hand to Mrs. Deetz, thanking the woman for her time, and Daryl grudgingly offered his own hand to the woman to shake before he followed Carol out into the hallway.

He didn't say anything, and neither did Carol, until they made it to the parking lot.

As soon as they were in the parking lot, though, Carol clearly thought that it was fair game to say anything she wanted.

"You know this is your fault, right?" She asked.

"How the hell is this even my fault?" Daryl asked, continuing on toward the car.

"He talks in class whenever he wants? He interrupts other people when they're talking? If something doesn't hold his interest, he verbally points that out to the entire classroom?" Carol listed off. As they walked, she continued to tick off things that the teacher had mentioned—and even a few that Daryl had missed entirely in the meeting because he was focusing on the fact that his ass had lost all feeling. "Daryl!"

Daryl stopped walking when Carol barked his name and turned around.

"What?!" He asked, barking it equally loud at her.

"Are you even listening to me?" Carol asked.

"I'm listening," Daryl said. "But I don't know what you want me to say. He's a six year old boy, Carol. He's a damn Dixon. And if I had to sit in the room and listen to that woman talk all day long? I'd prob'ly jump out the window! No wonder the class hamster died. Furry little asshole prob'ly committed suicide. Choked himself to death on a carrot or some shit."

Carol's expression said she didn't want to laugh. But she lost the war against herself.

"Daryl this is serious," Carol said. "What are we going to do about this? What are _you_ going to do about this? Because he gets this from you."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders.

"I'ma tell him to shut up and do what he's gotta do," Daryl said. "Give him some shit to do around the house that he don't like to do and—hell—I'ma tell him no dessert or somethin' if he don't sit right there and do it. No bitchin'. But I don't know why the hell you think this is all me and not a bit of it comes from you? You don't exactly sit quietly and do everything you don't like to do around the house."

Carol raised her eyebrows at Daryl.

"I do plenty I don't like to do," Carol said. "And I don't say a word about it. Besides—we never had these problems with Sophia."

Daryl sighed.

It was true.

Though he'd only been Sophia's father since _she_ was six years old, he'd never heard a complaint about her in a single parent-teacher conference.

Wyatt?

They'd been going to conferences for him, it seemed, since he was in daycare. Daryl was pretty sure that he was the only father ever that had heard his son's caretaker discussing his behavior before he could walk.

"Fine," Daryl said. "Fine—he gets this from me. And Sophia? She gets that lil' smartass streak from you. You win. I'll handle this."

" _We'll_ handle it," Carol said with a sigh. "We've just got to—talk to him. Just like we told Sophia that she couldn't—she couldn't always say what she was thinking? At least not in the words that she was using to think them? We'll just tell Wyatt that—silence is golden."

"Fine," Daryl said. "It's settled. Just as soon as we pick him up from Merle and Andrea's? We'll go home and we'll sit him down and we'll tell him that."

Daryl reached the car and unlocked it. He opened Carol's door and waited for her to get in and get situated. He handed her the seatbelt, though she could easily reach around it and grab it herself, just because the walk from the classroom to the car had somewhat robbed her of her breath.

Straightening up, Daryl laughed to himself.

"What?" Carol asked, furrowing her brows at him. She was set to get pissed if he made fun of the fact that the baby was already leaving her winded.

Daryl sucked his teeth and shook his head.

"Nothin'," Daryl said. "Just thinking that...if Sophia got her smartass streak from you, and Wyatt got from me that he can't sit still and shut up? God bless the whole damn world when that one gets out. 'Cause odds are? She's gonna be a true damn mix of the both of us, and she's gonna bust hell wide open...even though the devil's damn sure gonna hear her ass comin'."


End file.
